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I was curious how the gender behaviour, the male role or female role, is known in mammals. Do mammals instinctively know how to do seduce the opposed sex or do the animals learn it from their parents/companion of the same sex (e.g. by imprinting)?

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    $\begingroup$ some do some don't, "animals" is pretty broad category, there are plenty of animals that don't even have sexes. you may want to narrow it down a bit. Some birds for instance have to learn their mating songs, and won't be able to mate is raised in captivity and never learn them when they are young, other know them from birth. $\endgroup$
    – John
    Apr 28, 2019 at 23:32
  • $\begingroup$ Thats a very cool question but its difficult to answer because insects birds fish and mammals can have very complex courtship even in their first year, and spend most of their energy on reproducing. A lot of it must be innate and instinctive behaviour. $\endgroup$
    – bandybabboon
    Apr 30, 2019 at 19:33

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Some behavior can be traced to the genome. In Drosophila there are many interesting studies that show how genes and courtship behavior are related Example.

In mammals, the environmental component in determining courtship behavior is for sure, much more relevant than in Drosophila.

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